13 ms·

TL of AMP here. Just wanted to clarify that we specifically requested Apple (and other browser vendors) to do this. AMP's policy states that platforms should sh

TL of AMP here. Just wanted to clarify that we specifically requested Apple (and other browser vendors) to do this. AMP's policy states that platforms should share the canonical URL of an article whenever technically possible. This browser change makes it technically possible in Safari. We cannot wait for other vendors to implement. It appears Safari implemented a special case. We'd prefer a more generic solution where browsers would share the canonical link by default, but this works for us.

jacquesm 9y ago
> We'd prefer a more generic solution where browsers would share the canonical link by default, but this works for us. We had that solution it was called 'the web'. I'd prefer a more generic solution too: get rid of AMP. It really isn't about what 'works for you' it is about what is good for Google versus what is good for the web.
- endgame 9y ago
  Hear, hear. If you want to incentivise not delivering multi-megabyte "experiences" to people, I could see a case for feeding page weight into the ranking algorithm. Then people would be less inclined to have tag managers loading tag managers loading a zillion random js trackers. I have personally saved at least one decent laptop from landfill by installing uBlock Origin on it, and making the web usable again.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    Connection count multiplied by number of bytes transferred. That would get rid of the cruft on the web in a heartbeat. Every SEO consultant would suddenly have an actual job, playing code golf on CSS and HTML to deliver the content in the minimum number of bytes possible.
    - StavrosK 9y ago
      This penalizes data-heavy websites, though, no? For example, I can see how a photojournalism piece with lots of photos would be ranked to hell, whereas a content-free text piece would be ranked very highly.
      - jacquesm 9y ago
        But on the same subject all pages would be data heavy. Only where a data heavy page would compete with a similar page that was lightweight would the one be ranked above the other. But your average news page would weigh in roughly the same no matter what the source was. Assuming you'd strip out all the cruft. For reference, I optimized my website a while ago and ended up with the average page being < 15K. https://jacquesmattheij.com/the-fastest-blog-in-the-world https://jacquesmattheij.com/the-fastest-blog-in-the-world Try it, on any connection in normal use today it should load faster than you can blink. Add a few pictures and it would still work quite comfortably.
        StavrosK 9y ago
        > But on the same subject all pages would be data heavy. Not all of them. For a trivial example, an in-depth article about a topic would be penalized more than a more epidermic one, because it would contain more text, graphs, etc. > For reference, I optimized my website a while ago and ended up with the average page being < 15K. I feel you, I absolutely hate that my website uses a bunch of stuff for almost no reason. 80 KB of CSS or 90 KB of font isn't awesome, and I started a project to provide information on how to create lighter websites (https://www.lightentheweb.com/ https://www.lightentheweb.com/, stalled a bit). All I'm saying here, though, is that the solution is more nuanced than "heavier = lower". AMP is definitely not a step in the right direction, though. I wonder if Google could give sites that used a specific CSS file and no JS a bump, rather than loading things on their own domain.
        jacquesm 9y ago
        > For a trivial example, an in-depth article about a topic would be penalized more than a more epidermic one, because it would contain more text, graphs, etc. But such trivial examples should be trivial to get right no? It's all about the relative weight of the various factors that determine the ranking and a 'lightweight' article could be recognized as such.
    - mulmen 9y ago
      Google already wrote AMP which parses page content and presents the user with Google's ideal version of the page. Just include the delta in the ranking. The more a page has to be "cleaned" by AMP the lower it ranks.
      - jacquesm 9y ago
        Clever!
      - abritinthebay 9y ago
        That’s... not really what AMP does. I mean, kinda, but not really. You have to cater to it specifically
        mulmen 9y ago
        Yeah good point. In general something like that could still work though. Whatever characteristics of a page Google is trying to "fix" with AMP could just be added to the ranking algorithm.
        abritinthebay 9y ago
        Absolutely
      - igravious 9y ago
        Exactly, make it an internal delta signal thing rather than pushing it externally on the entire web. Yes they can because of their position and size, but should they? No they shouldn't.
    - kevin_thibedeau 9y ago
      Connections^2 to penalize the worst offenders with 20+ cross site scripts most.
    - dwild 9y ago
      What does the connection count bring anything? All that matter would be the total number of bytes transferred. I don't think that would be a good metric for relevance though and in most case, the total size isn't an issue. Which is why AMP is good, low file size when it's needed, full size when it's not.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - always_good 9y ago
    > I could see a case for feeding page > weight into the ranking algorithm I see people saying this, but it doesn't make sense. You're using google to try and find something. I don't see how penalizing the thing you're looking for helps you find what you're looking for. Just sounds like yet another thing that gives HNers boners at the expense of everyone else's experience. "Hah, yeah get'em! They deserve it!"
    - jacquesm 9y ago
      It won't help you to find what you are looking for but it incentivizes the websites to reduce the weight of their pages and that is ostensibly what AMP tries to achieve.
  - jonas21 9y ago
    Google already tried this, back in 2010. https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2010/04/using-site-speed-in-web-search-ranking.html https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2010/04/using-site-speed-i...
  - ukyrgf 9y ago
    > I have personally saved at least one decent laptop from landfill by installing uBlock Origin on it, and making the web usable again. For me, I'd given up on trying to browse the web on my smartphone until Firefox Focus came along. I realize Firefox for Android now allows extensions, but I still used it as a typical browser. I signed into my accounts, I had expectations for a personalized experience, etc. With Focus, it's just a quick visit to a site and then it disappears. I can find the information I want, quickly, yet again.
  - sametmax 9y ago
    That's what google would do if they wanted to help the web, and not just faking they do. They used to, now they are just playing pretend for PR reasons.
- cramforce 9y ago
  Happy to have a technical discussion, but not sure you are really interested. TL;dr AMP is 100% build on web tech. Pre-rendering achieves the performance but relies on history.pushState and iframes, which doesn't allow presenting a URL that is not on the same origin as the search page. We think that the UX trade off in the URL is OK given the performance benefits. Given that it is a trade off we now have a bunch of projects to mitigate those trade offs. More coming soon, including lots of improvements to Safari. My team works directly on WebKit to fix bugs that affect AMP (but also the web as a whole, since AMP is just web tech).
  - Waterluvian 9y ago
    I've heard so much negative feedback about AMP that I'm not sure I have the full story. What link(s) would you recommend someone review if they wanted to build their own informed decision on the merits of this technology?
    - cramforce 9y ago
      https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml https://medium.com/@cramforce/why-amp-is-fast-7d2ff1f48597 https://medium.com/@cramforce/why-amp-is-fast-7d2ff1f48597 https://medium.com/@cramforce/why-amp-html-does-not-take-full-advantage-of-the-preload-scanner-7e7f788aa94e https://medium.com/@cramforce/why-amp-html-does-not-take-ful... People here are opinionated about it, but users love it.
      - agildehaus 9y ago
        Users loved AOL keywords. Here we discuss technical merit.
        MBCook 9y ago
        I actually think AOL keywords worked fantastically.
      - kuschku 9y ago
- godzillabrennus 9y ago
  If you hate AMP you should try and use DuckDuckGo.com these days. I'm astounded at how much better it is than the last time I tried it. Switched to it in Chrome a few weeks ago and don't miss Google. Which is shocking to me.
  - dordoka 9y ago
    Not to be pedantic, but you should switch Chrome too. Firefox 57 is pretty amazing (currently in nightly).
    - pvg 9y ago
      That's not pedantic, just unrelated.
    - godzillabrennus 9y ago
      I'm trailing Brave out at the moment and like it but plugins are important to me. Firefox is an interesting choice but the Chrome plugin ecosystem seems much more complete for me than Firefox has today. It'll be interesting to see what happens in the space. I was a Mozilla user, then Firefox and now Chrome user. I have no issue going to better platforms.
    - guitarbill 9y ago
      I tried this recently because ideologically I agree. But the small issues build up and make me less productive. For example, if you use a U2F key, you need an extension for that to work - and that extension doesn't work with FF 57. I honestly don't remember the last time something broke with Chrome. Or smaller things, like the fact that I can't use the keyboard to manage bookmarks (in FF on macOS, backspace doesn't delete bookmarks). But the worst is in FF, Ctrl+Shift+N isn't new incognito window, it's restore the previous window. Years of muscle memory don't go away overnight.
      - dordoka 9y ago
        Chances are that extension is not yet ported to the WebExtensions API. It should probably be ported eventually, as precisely one of the benefits of WebExtensions is that it makes way more easy to port a Chrome extension to a Firefox one and viceversa. Regarding the shortcuts, I feel you. There's an extension for that as well (Menu Wizard) but it has also not been ported. I guess it's too soon yet.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > I'd prefer a more generic solution too: get rid of AMP User here. I like AMP. At the end of the day, I want to read an article. Most of the time, Reader view works. But not always. AMP reliably and quickly renders legible web pages. This wouldn't be an issue if 90% of newspaper websites didn't look like they were designed by turnips.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    Yes, I get why Google positioned it the exact way they did. It's very clever. But clever doesn't make it right. If Google really wanted to improve the quality of the web they had excellent tools to achieve that: the weighing of the various elements that go into the ranking algo. But instead they chose to do an end-run around all standards processes and to attempt to capture mobile content (which is an extremely valuable slice of all web traffic) at the expense of competition and the openness of the web. And so you are now a very willing pawn in the endgame for the domination of the world wide web, which will eventually result in Google being the sole provider of your content by virtue of the web being consumed more and more through mobile devices. If you're not concerned I totally understand, but maybe you should be.
    - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
      > If Google really wanted to improve the quality of the web they had excellent tools to achieve that: the weighing of the various elements that go into the ranking algo Doesn't Google already do this [1]? There are unintended consequences to increasing speed's weight in search rankings. Principally, it disadvantages smaller players. (Also, the New York Times would consistently rank under Buzzfeed.) > you are now a very willing pawn in the endgame for the domination of the world wide web Most people get news from the walled gardens of Facebook and Twitter [2]. The minority of us sharing links to newspaper articles probably also have direct relationships with publishers. For example, I read the New York Times, Washington Post, Economist, Bloomberg and other papers directly on their sites because I subscribe to their newsletters. > maybe you should be [concerned] Maybe, but I don't think so. The things I read about in the newspapers AMP gives me faster access to yield better (i.e. more serious and more actionable upon) avenues for my attention. In every context where AMP is a worry journalism's decline seems more important. [1] https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2010/04/using-site-speed-in-web-search-ranking.html https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2010/04/using-site-speed-i... [2] http://www.niemanlab.org/2015/07/new-pew-data-more-americans-are-getting-news-on-facebook-and-twitter/ http://www.niemanlab.org/2015/07/new-pew-data-more-americans...
- s17n 9y ago
  It's not "the web" vs AMP, it's AMP vs Facebook. Old school web is dead on mobile.
- zygotic_ 9y ago
  I find it really strange that people think that. AMP's competitors are Apple News and Facebook Instant Articles. They've done this in the spirit of the open Web - but they get some benefit too. That's why they build most of their services.
RivieraKid 9y ago
Brace for angry comments. (I'm neutral on AMP personally, but it has a really bad rep here.)
- protomyth 9y ago
  I’m neutral on most technology until I get a call that the ‘web is broken’ then I care. AMP made the jump for me this week.
slackingoff2017 9y ago
If AMP was so innocent Google would give users an easy way to disable it. It seems trivial to do, the fact that it's not in V1 says to me that there's ulterior motives. There's more reason Google wants you to use AMP than "it makes the web faster!". That's just the sell. They REALLY want you to use it, enough that they don't want you turn it off. Maybe something to do with protecting ad revenue? I heard that AMP was developed by people connected to the search team. And search team is probably another name for "AdWords cash cow team"
- TulliusCicero 9y ago
  Ulterior motive? Thought it was pretty obvious, shitty mobile page performance pushes people towards using ad blockers, which is obviously bad news for google. Most people don't mind basic, non-intrusive ads so much, which is what AMP retains.
  - slackingoff2017 9y ago
    Why not just punish slow sites? It would have been a lot easier than the zillion hours spent building AMP and the caching system.
    - jacquesm 9y ago
      Because that would not achieve the actual goal: to get people to stay on Google's properties, preferably without an ad blocker installed. Note how over time more and more of the things that Google used to simply point to are served by Google directly. AMP is just another element in that strategy.
      - hdhzy 9y ago
        Interesting because actually it was AMP that pushed me out of Google properties, to Firefox for Android with uBlock and DuckDuckGo and I'm planning to stay using this setup even though Google's engine is better (minus AMP).
    - 9y ago
wonderous 9y ago
Just to be clear, are you "the" or "one of many" Tech Lead(s) at Google for AMP?
- cramforce 9y ago
  So… In terms of the AMP open source project governance rules I am THE tech lead. https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/blob/master/GOVERNANCE.md#amp-project-open-source-governance https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/blob/master/GOVERNANCE... I also manage a team at Google that works full time on the AMP open source projects and act as an overarching tech lead, but there are several sub teams that have specialized tech leads (e.g. for UI, ads, analytics, caching, etc.). Is that what you wanted to know? :)
  - wonderous 9y ago
    Yes, thanks for the reply; also commented in part because thought the use of "TL" without spelling it out might need clarification too.
    - MBCook 9y ago
      It did. Honestly I had no idea what it stood for. Thanks.
  - cacarr 9y ago
    What's the deal with removing the AMP indicator logo in search results?
MBCook 9y ago
I'm one of the people who severely dislikes AMP and I've always wanted to know: why not give me an option to disable it?
- jacquesm 9y ago
  Better still: why not give you an option to enable it and default to normal.
  - ehsankia 9y ago
    Because the majority of people enjoy it? And the common user wants fast load and doesn't care about the philosophy of data retention and web ownership?
    - mulmen 9y ago
      How do you know this? It's equally possible the majority of people just don't care. That doesn't mean they like AMP or would op-in to it given the choice.
    - sosborn 9y ago
      > And the common user wants fast load and doesn't care about the philosophy of data retention and web ownership? While this is most certainly true, it doesn't mean that data retention and web ownership aren't values worth fighting for.
    - kavok 9y ago
      Reddit links via Google search results were broken for months on my iPhone because of AMP. How many other users had the same issue and no idea what was going on?
      - ehsankia 9y ago
        That's reddit's fault and isn't anything inherently wrong with AMP itself. Just because someone uses the technology wrong doesn't mean we should hate on the technology. If I use AngularJS to make a Neo Nazi site, should we all boycott that library?
supernintendo 9y ago
Could you definitively state whether or not AMP pages are ranked higher within searches or will be in the future? If so, please stop. Thanks.
- kuschku 9y ago
  Not op, but: There is an official statement from Google that they are not higher ranked within of the results, but AMP links can get indirect ranking boosts, for example Google lists the top 4 or 5 relevant AMP links before the actual results in a carousel. This is identical to the ranking boost given to Google Shopping (for which Google was just fined 3 billion EUR), so you can expect the same result.
  - tyingq 9y ago
    More minor, but AMP results get the little lightning bolt icon too. I believe there is research showing that little adornments like that convey trust and increase the CTR vs other listings that don't have them.
  - bb611 9y ago
    > This is identical to the ranking boost given to Google Shopping (for which Google was just fined 3 billion EUR), so you can expect the same result. Isn't it different because (presumably) the AMP links aren't owned by Google? The fine was specifically for anti-competitive behavior, i.e. consistently surfacing their own links over those of shopping competitors, which at least with AMP links isn't necessarily the behavior, though there is likely some overlap there.
    - kuschku 9y ago
      It is actually. Google only gives the carousel position benefit to sites using the AMP js from Google's CDN. If you use any other CDN, you don't get the benefit.
      - bb611 9y ago
stephen_g 9y ago
Please, please let us have an option to only see real links in search results... In my experience, AMP has been so annoying that I just want to disable it entirely for my Google account - why wouldn't this be an option?
- sp332 9y ago
  This might not be a great workaround, but Firefox doesn't "do" AMP. My brother switched to FF on his phone just to avoid AMP pages. As a bonus you can use uBlock Origin on mobile Firefox.
brudgers 9y ago
OK, Google asked Apple for input on amp. When will Google ask the EFF?
- jacquesm 9y ago
  Octember 27th.
lawnchair_larry 9y ago
Please get rid of AMP. You've ruined the internet.
mulmen 9y ago
How would this be implemented without special cases? Why should a platform care about AMP's policy?
- e12e 9y ago
  Yeah, I don't see this either: amp as implemented is a mitm attack that delivers content in an opaque manner, as it's not a proxy at the http(s)/socks level - how would the user agent know that "amp.google.com/url=actual.url.example.com" should be rewritten, but "random.example.com/article?someParam=old.url.example.com&article=42" should not be rewritten? Now Google has forever(?) broken links in search results, in order to count click-throughs - so I suppose all browsers should special case that too... I can't for the life of me figure out why they married an ok html/css/js subset (amp pages) with an absurdly invasive proxy technology. I hear they say "speed", and "75%" - but if that's going from 130ms to 50ms complete page render does it really matter?
  - ec109685 9y ago
    The browser could read the canonical meta tag in the article HTML and just share that.
    - e12e 9y ago
      Right. But then you could provide a different canonical url on any site, altering which url is shared? (hence, I don't see how you could reasonably do this without "special casing").
      - ec109685 9y ago
        Good point.
weirdstuff 9y ago
Is google working on opt-in or opt-out functionality, or is that something that might happen in the foreseeable future? I think a move like that would go a long way in the goodwill department.
Zelphyr 9y ago
You keep saying users "love the experience". Can you provide data to back that up?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
malchow 9y ago
Really? Because I can't count the number of times that I have attempted to share an open web URL from a Google product or website only to have the AMP URL turn up when I paste.
- ViViDboarder 9y ago
  Yea. How about Chrome?
comstock 9y ago
What about a feature in Safari that disable Amp completely? That would be neat, seeing as Google don't seem to offer it as an option...
Aaargh20318 9y ago
Please get rid if AMP as soon as possible, I had to switch to DDG on my phone just to avoid it. I didn’t buy a high-end smartphone with fast 4G to browse a crippled version of the web. Congratulations, you re-invented WAP and turned back the clock on the mobile web 20 years.
andruby 9y ago
What does "TL" stand for?
- ec109685 9y ago
  Tech Lead
coldtea 9y ago
>We'd prefer a more generic solution where browsers would share the canonical link by default So, like regular webpage visits?
TekMol 9y ago
> TL of AMP here Hello. Sorry, but I have to express my deep disgust for what you do. "Give us your content and we'll rank you higher' is the opposite of what made the web and Google awesome. If you care about user experience, downrank pages based on CPU usage, Memory usage, number of tcp/ip connections, number of domains connected, number of ips connected, number of bytes transferred, percentage of time that the UI is non-responsive and so on. Trying to force the web into your little AMP cage is a terrible idea. It's the Facebook way of doing things. Are you really so afraid that you have to join the crooks? Would you have managed to take such a big part of the pie from Microsoft if you had been afraid of them and played their game? Don't fight oppression with oppression. Fight it with freedom. Get rid of that AMP crap.
- sangnoir 9y ago
  > Don't fight oppression with oppression. Fight it with freedom. Get rid of that AMP crap. The only problem I have with AMP is that (google search) users can't turn it off. Me - I love AMP. You would love it too if you had to browse the internet on shitty third-world 3G connections(if you're lucky! Otherwise you're stuck on EDGE or GPRS). Not all CDNs are equal when browsing from less developed countries. AMP is great for the next billion internet users, not so much for the HN crowd who don't mind multi-MB page loads without worrying about timeouts. Google should make AMP opt-out so that those who can afford to turn it off have the choice.
  - pucado 9y ago
    I can't agree with this enough. Even though I have a 100Mbps unlimited plan, doesn't mean everyone can and will have it. I can't say I love AMP, but I definitely support it. Purely from the reach it can potentially have if everyone does start using is great. Everybody is already optimizing so that they get crawled by Google, better faster and more efficiently. This is the logical next step. From a ranking perspective, I think it's important that the HN community stops thinking just in terms of geographical metrics. Yes, in the US, UK etc where our offices are it gets blotched. But our next users are not going to be there from these countries. If at all, being a PM for a global product here, tomorrow's users, paying or free will be from probably from a country where AMP users would be the most impressionable today.
nailer 9y ago
Why can't a site appear on the search carousel if it uses amp.js but is delivered from a fast, non-Google CDN?
LoSboccacc 9y ago
> "we specifically requested Apple" "we fucked up again web to wap level and now everyone needs to jump along because sharing is royally screwed"
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
odammit 9y ago
Your product is at best a turd burger at worst, an undercooked turd burger. The easiest way to do the "more generic solution" is to remove that turd burger from search results. Interwebz fixed.
cramforce 9y ago
UPDATE: We confirmed that this actually implemented as a generic solution. (Sharing <link rel=canonical>), so there is nothing AMP specific here.
nofunsir 9y ago
> TL of AMP here I really wish some interdimensional telepathic Fart would Goodbye Moonmen this TL into abandoning AMP.

jacquesm 9y ago

> We'd prefer a more generic solution where browsers would share the canonical link by default, but this works for us. We had that solution it was called 'the web'. I'd prefer a more generic solution too: get rid of AMP. It really isn't about what 'works for you' it is about what is good for Google versus what is good for the web.

endgame 9y ago
Hear, hear. If you want to incentivise not delivering multi-megabyte "experiences" to people, I could see a case for feeding page weight into the ranking algorithm. Then people would be less inclined to have tag managers loading tag managers loading a zillion random js trackers. I have personally saved at least one decent laptop from landfill by installing uBlock Origin on it, and making the web usable again.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  Connection count multiplied by number of bytes transferred. That would get rid of the cruft on the web in a heartbeat. Every SEO consultant would suddenly have an actual job, playing code golf on CSS and HTML to deliver the content in the minimum number of bytes possible.
  - StavrosK 9y ago
    This penalizes data-heavy websites, though, no? For example, I can see how a photojournalism piece with lots of photos would be ranked to hell, whereas a content-free text piece would be ranked very highly.
    - jacquesm 9y ago
      But on the same subject all pages would be data heavy. Only where a data heavy page would compete with a similar page that was lightweight would the one be ranked above the other. But your average news page would weigh in roughly the same no matter what the source was. Assuming you'd strip out all the cruft. For reference, I optimized my website a while ago and ended up with the average page being < 15K. https://jacquesmattheij.com/the-fastest-blog-in-the-world https://jacquesmattheij.com/the-fastest-blog-in-the-world Try it, on any connection in normal use today it should load faster than you can blink. Add a few pictures and it would still work quite comfortably.
      - StavrosK 9y ago
        > But on the same subject all pages would be data heavy. Not all of them. For a trivial example, an in-depth article about a topic would be penalized more than a more epidermic one, because it would contain more text, graphs, etc. > For reference, I optimized my website a while ago and ended up with the average page being < 15K. I feel you, I absolutely hate that my website uses a bunch of stuff for almost no reason. 80 KB of CSS or 90 KB of font isn't awesome, and I started a project to provide information on how to create lighter websites (https://www.lightentheweb.com/ https://www.lightentheweb.com/, stalled a bit). All I'm saying here, though, is that the solution is more nuanced than "heavier = lower". AMP is definitely not a step in the right direction, though. I wonder if Google could give sites that used a specific CSS file and no JS a bump, rather than loading things on their own domain.
        jacquesm 9y ago
        > For a trivial example, an in-depth article about a topic would be penalized more than a more epidermic one, because it would contain more text, graphs, etc. But such trivial examples should be trivial to get right no? It's all about the relative weight of the various factors that determine the ranking and a 'lightweight' article could be recognized as such.
  - mulmen 9y ago
    Google already wrote AMP which parses page content and presents the user with Google's ideal version of the page. Just include the delta in the ranking. The more a page has to be "cleaned" by AMP the lower it ranks.
    - jacquesm 9y ago
      Clever!
    - abritinthebay 9y ago
      That’s... not really what AMP does. I mean, kinda, but not really. You have to cater to it specifically
      - mulmen 9y ago
        Yeah good point. In general something like that could still work though. Whatever characteristics of a page Google is trying to "fix" with AMP could just be added to the ranking algorithm.
        abritinthebay 9y ago
        Absolutely
    - igravious 9y ago
      Exactly, make it an internal delta signal thing rather than pushing it externally on the entire web. Yes they can because of their position and size, but should they? No they shouldn't.
  - kevin_thibedeau 9y ago
    Connections^2 to penalize the worst offenders with 20+ cross site scripts most.
  - dwild 9y ago
    What does the connection count bring anything? All that matter would be the total number of bytes transferred. I don't think that would be a good metric for relevance though and in most case, the total size isn't an issue. Which is why AMP is good, low file size when it's needed, full size when it's not.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- always_good 9y ago
  > I could see a case for feeding page > weight into the ranking algorithm I see people saying this, but it doesn't make sense. You're using google to try and find something. I don't see how penalizing the thing you're looking for helps you find what you're looking for. Just sounds like yet another thing that gives HNers boners at the expense of everyone else's experience. "Hah, yeah get'em! They deserve it!"
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    It won't help you to find what you are looking for but it incentivizes the websites to reduce the weight of their pages and that is ostensibly what AMP tries to achieve.
- jonas21 9y ago
  Google already tried this, back in 2010. https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2010/04/using-site-speed-in-web-search-ranking.html https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2010/04/using-site-speed-i...
- ukyrgf 9y ago
  > I have personally saved at least one decent laptop from landfill by installing uBlock Origin on it, and making the web usable again. For me, I'd given up on trying to browse the web on my smartphone until Firefox Focus came along. I realize Firefox for Android now allows extensions, but I still used it as a typical browser. I signed into my accounts, I had expectations for a personalized experience, etc. With Focus, it's just a quick visit to a site and then it disappears. I can find the information I want, quickly, yet again.
- sametmax 9y ago
  That's what google would do if they wanted to help the web, and not just faking they do. They used to, now they are just playing pretend for PR reasons.
cramforce 9y ago
Happy to have a technical discussion, but not sure you are really interested. TL;dr AMP is 100% build on web tech. Pre-rendering achieves the performance but relies on history.pushState and iframes, which doesn't allow presenting a URL that is not on the same origin as the search page. We think that the UX trade off in the URL is OK given the performance benefits. Given that it is a trade off we now have a bunch of projects to mitigate those trade offs. More coming soon, including lots of improvements to Safari. My team works directly on WebKit to fix bugs that affect AMP (but also the web as a whole, since AMP is just web tech).
- Waterluvian 9y ago
  I've heard so much negative feedback about AMP that I'm not sure I have the full story. What link(s) would you recommend someone review if they wanted to build their own informed decision on the merits of this technology?
  - cramforce 9y ago
    https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml https://medium.com/@cramforce/why-amp-is-fast-7d2ff1f48597 https://medium.com/@cramforce/why-amp-is-fast-7d2ff1f48597 https://medium.com/@cramforce/why-amp-html-does-not-take-full-advantage-of-the-preload-scanner-7e7f788aa94e https://medium.com/@cramforce/why-amp-html-does-not-take-ful... People here are opinionated about it, but users love it.
    - agildehaus 9y ago
      Users loved AOL keywords. Here we discuss technical merit.
      - MBCook 9y ago
        I actually think AOL keywords worked fantastically.
    - kuschku 9y ago
godzillabrennus 9y ago
If you hate AMP you should try and use DuckDuckGo.com these days. I'm astounded at how much better it is than the last time I tried it. Switched to it in Chrome a few weeks ago and don't miss Google. Which is shocking to me.
- dordoka 9y ago
  Not to be pedantic, but you should switch Chrome too. Firefox 57 is pretty amazing (currently in nightly).
  - pvg 9y ago
    That's not pedantic, just unrelated.
  - godzillabrennus 9y ago
    I'm trailing Brave out at the moment and like it but plugins are important to me. Firefox is an interesting choice but the Chrome plugin ecosystem seems much more complete for me than Firefox has today. It'll be interesting to see what happens in the space. I was a Mozilla user, then Firefox and now Chrome user. I have no issue going to better platforms.
  - guitarbill 9y ago
    I tried this recently because ideologically I agree. But the small issues build up and make me less productive. For example, if you use a U2F key, you need an extension for that to work - and that extension doesn't work with FF 57. I honestly don't remember the last time something broke with Chrome. Or smaller things, like the fact that I can't use the keyboard to manage bookmarks (in FF on macOS, backspace doesn't delete bookmarks). But the worst is in FF, Ctrl+Shift+N isn't new incognito window, it's restore the previous window. Years of muscle memory don't go away overnight.
    - dordoka 9y ago
      Chances are that extension is not yet ported to the WebExtensions API. It should probably be ported eventually, as precisely one of the benefits of WebExtensions is that it makes way more easy to port a Chrome extension to a Firefox one and viceversa. Regarding the shortcuts, I feel you. There's an extension for that as well (Menu Wizard) but it has also not been ported. I guess it's too soon yet.
JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> I'd prefer a more generic solution too: get rid of AMP User here. I like AMP. At the end of the day, I want to read an article. Most of the time, Reader view works. But not always. AMP reliably and quickly renders legible web pages. This wouldn't be an issue if 90% of newspaper websites didn't look like they were designed by turnips.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  Yes, I get why Google positioned it the exact way they did. It's very clever. But clever doesn't make it right. If Google really wanted to improve the quality of the web they had excellent tools to achieve that: the weighing of the various elements that go into the ranking algo. But instead they chose to do an end-run around all standards processes and to attempt to capture mobile content (which is an extremely valuable slice of all web traffic) at the expense of competition and the openness of the web. And so you are now a very willing pawn in the endgame for the domination of the world wide web, which will eventually result in Google being the sole provider of your content by virtue of the web being consumed more and more through mobile devices. If you're not concerned I totally understand, but maybe you should be.
  - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
    > If Google really wanted to improve the quality of the web they had excellent tools to achieve that: the weighing of the various elements that go into the ranking algo Doesn't Google already do this [1]? There are unintended consequences to increasing speed's weight in search rankings. Principally, it disadvantages smaller players. (Also, the New York Times would consistently rank under Buzzfeed.) > you are now a very willing pawn in the endgame for the domination of the world wide web Most people get news from the walled gardens of Facebook and Twitter [2]. The minority of us sharing links to newspaper articles probably also have direct relationships with publishers. For example, I read the New York Times, Washington Post, Economist, Bloomberg and other papers directly on their sites because I subscribe to their newsletters. > maybe you should be [concerned] Maybe, but I don't think so. The things I read about in the newspapers AMP gives me faster access to yield better (i.e. more serious and more actionable upon) avenues for my attention. In every context where AMP is a worry journalism's decline seems more important. [1] https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2010/04/using-site-speed-in-web-search-ranking.html https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2010/04/using-site-speed-i... [2] http://www.niemanlab.org/2015/07/new-pew-data-more-americans-are-getting-news-on-facebook-and-twitter/ http://www.niemanlab.org/2015/07/new-pew-data-more-americans...
s17n 9y ago
It's not "the web" vs AMP, it's AMP vs Facebook. Old school web is dead on mobile.
zygotic_ 9y ago
I find it really strange that people think that. AMP's competitors are Apple News and Facebook Instant Articles. They've done this in the spirit of the open Web - but they get some benefit too. That's why they build most of their services.

RivieraKid 9y ago

Brace for angry comments. (I'm neutral on AMP personally, but it has a really bad rep here.)

protomyth 9y ago
I’m neutral on most technology until I get a call that the ‘web is broken’ then I care. AMP made the jump for me this week.

slackingoff2017 9y ago

If AMP was so innocent Google would give users an easy way to disable it. It seems trivial to do, the fact that it's not in V1 says to me that there's ulterior motives. There's more reason Google wants you to use AMP than "it makes the web faster!". That's just the sell. They REALLY want you to use it, enough that they don't want you turn it off. Maybe something to do with protecting ad revenue? I heard that AMP was developed by people connected to the search team. And search team is probably another name for "AdWords cash cow team"

TulliusCicero 9y ago
Ulterior motive? Thought it was pretty obvious, shitty mobile page performance pushes people towards using ad blockers, which is obviously bad news for google. Most people don't mind basic, non-intrusive ads so much, which is what AMP retains.
- slackingoff2017 9y ago
  Why not just punish slow sites? It would have been a lot easier than the zillion hours spent building AMP and the caching system.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    Because that would not achieve the actual goal: to get people to stay on Google's properties, preferably without an ad blocker installed. Note how over time more and more of the things that Google used to simply point to are served by Google directly. AMP is just another element in that strategy.
    - hdhzy 9y ago
      Interesting because actually it was AMP that pushed me out of Google properties, to Firefox for Android with uBlock and DuckDuckGo and I'm planning to stay using this setup even though Google's engine is better (minus AMP).
  - 9y ago

wonderous 9y ago

Just to be clear, are you "the" or "one of many" Tech Lead(s) at Google for AMP?

cramforce 9y ago
So… In terms of the AMP open source project governance rules I am THE tech lead. https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/blob/master/GOVERNANCE.md#amp-project-open-source-governance https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/blob/master/GOVERNANCE... I also manage a team at Google that works full time on the AMP open source projects and act as an overarching tech lead, but there are several sub teams that have specialized tech leads (e.g. for UI, ads, analytics, caching, etc.). Is that what you wanted to know? :)
- wonderous 9y ago
  Yes, thanks for the reply; also commented in part because thought the use of "TL" without spelling it out might need clarification too.
  - MBCook 9y ago
    It did. Honestly I had no idea what it stood for. Thanks.
- cacarr 9y ago
  What's the deal with removing the AMP indicator logo in search results?

MBCook 9y ago

I'm one of the people who severely dislikes AMP and I've always wanted to know: why not give me an option to disable it?

jacquesm 9y ago
Better still: why not give you an option to enable it and default to normal.
- ehsankia 9y ago
  Because the majority of people enjoy it? And the common user wants fast load and doesn't care about the philosophy of data retention and web ownership?
  - mulmen 9y ago
    How do you know this? It's equally possible the majority of people just don't care. That doesn't mean they like AMP or would op-in to it given the choice.
  - sosborn 9y ago
    > And the common user wants fast load and doesn't care about the philosophy of data retention and web ownership? While this is most certainly true, it doesn't mean that data retention and web ownership aren't values worth fighting for.
  - kavok 9y ago
    Reddit links via Google search results were broken for months on my iPhone because of AMP. How many other users had the same issue and no idea what was going on?
    - ehsankia 9y ago
      That's reddit's fault and isn't anything inherently wrong with AMP itself. Just because someone uses the technology wrong doesn't mean we should hate on the technology. If I use AngularJS to make a Neo Nazi site, should we all boycott that library?

supernintendo 9y ago

Could you definitively state whether or not AMP pages are ranked higher within searches or will be in the future? If so, please stop. Thanks.

kuschku 9y ago
Not op, but: There is an official statement from Google that they are not higher ranked within of the results, but AMP links can get indirect ranking boosts, for example Google lists the top 4 or 5 relevant AMP links before the actual results in a carousel. This is identical to the ranking boost given to Google Shopping (for which Google was just fined 3 billion EUR), so you can expect the same result.
- tyingq 9y ago
  More minor, but AMP results get the little lightning bolt icon too. I believe there is research showing that little adornments like that convey trust and increase the CTR vs other listings that don't have them.
- bb611 9y ago
  > This is identical to the ranking boost given to Google Shopping (for which Google was just fined 3 billion EUR), so you can expect the same result. Isn't it different because (presumably) the AMP links aren't owned by Google? The fine was specifically for anti-competitive behavior, i.e. consistently surfacing their own links over those of shopping competitors, which at least with AMP links isn't necessarily the behavior, though there is likely some overlap there.
  - kuschku 9y ago
    It is actually. Google only gives the carousel position benefit to sites using the AMP js from Google's CDN. If you use any other CDN, you don't get the benefit.
    - bb611 9y ago

stephen_g 9y ago

Please, please let us have an option to only see real links in search results... In my experience, AMP has been so annoying that I just want to disable it entirely for my Google account - why wouldn't this be an option?

sp332 9y ago
This might not be a great workaround, but Firefox doesn't "do" AMP. My brother switched to FF on his phone just to avoid AMP pages. As a bonus you can use uBlock Origin on mobile Firefox.

brudgers 9y ago

OK, Google asked Apple for input on amp. When will Google ask the EFF?

jacquesm 9y ago
Octember 27th.

lawnchair_larry 9y ago

Please get rid of AMP. You've ruined the internet.

mulmen 9y ago

How would this be implemented without special cases? Why should a platform care about AMP's policy?

e12e 9y ago
Yeah, I don't see this either: amp as implemented is a mitm attack that delivers content in an opaque manner, as it's not a proxy at the http(s)/socks level - how would the user agent know that "amp.google.com/url=actual.url.example.com" should be rewritten, but "random.example.com/article?someParam=old.url.example.com&article=42" should not be rewritten? Now Google has forever(?) broken links in search results, in order to count click-throughs - so I suppose all browsers should special case that too... I can't for the life of me figure out why they married an ok html/css/js subset (amp pages) with an absurdly invasive proxy technology. I hear they say "speed", and "75%" - but if that's going from 130ms to 50ms complete page render does it really matter?
- ec109685 9y ago
  The browser could read the canonical meta tag in the article HTML and just share that.
  - e12e 9y ago
    Right. But then you could provide a different canonical url on any site, altering which url is shared? (hence, I don't see how you could reasonably do this without "special casing").
    - ec109685 9y ago
      Good point.

weirdstuff 9y ago

Is google working on opt-in or opt-out functionality, or is that something that might happen in the foreseeable future? I think a move like that would go a long way in the goodwill department.

Zelphyr 9y ago

You keep saying users "love the experience". Can you provide data to back that up?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

malchow 9y ago

Really? Because I can't count the number of times that I have attempted to share an open web URL from a Google product or website only to have the AMP URL turn up when I paste.

ViViDboarder 9y ago
Yea. How about Chrome?

comstock 9y ago

What about a feature in Safari that disable Amp completely? That would be neat, seeing as Google don't seem to offer it as an option...

Aaargh20318 9y ago

Please get rid if AMP as soon as possible, I had to switch to DDG on my phone just to avoid it. I didn’t buy a high-end smartphone with fast 4G to browse a crippled version of the web. Congratulations, you re-invented WAP and turned back the clock on the mobile web 20 years.

andruby 9y ago

What does "TL" stand for?

ec109685 9y ago
Tech Lead

coldtea 9y ago

>We'd prefer a more generic solution where browsers would share the canonical link by default So, like regular webpage visits?

TekMol 9y ago

> TL of AMP here Hello. Sorry, but I have to express my deep disgust for what you do. "Give us your content and we'll rank you higher' is the opposite of what made the web and Google awesome. If you care about user experience, downrank pages based on CPU usage, Memory usage, number of tcp/ip connections, number of domains connected, number of ips connected, number of bytes transferred, percentage of time that the UI is non-responsive and so on. Trying to force the web into your little AMP cage is a terrible idea. It's the Facebook way of doing things. Are you really so afraid that you have to join the crooks? Would you have managed to take such a big part of the pie from Microsoft if you had been afraid of them and played their game? Don't fight oppression with oppression. Fight it with freedom. Get rid of that AMP crap.

sangnoir 9y ago
> Don't fight oppression with oppression. Fight it with freedom. Get rid of that AMP crap. The only problem I have with AMP is that (google search) users can't turn it off. Me - I love AMP. You would love it too if you had to browse the internet on shitty third-world 3G connections(if you're lucky! Otherwise you're stuck on EDGE or GPRS). Not all CDNs are equal when browsing from less developed countries. AMP is great for the next billion internet users, not so much for the HN crowd who don't mind multi-MB page loads without worrying about timeouts. Google should make AMP opt-out so that those who can afford to turn it off have the choice.
- pucado 9y ago
  I can't agree with this enough. Even though I have a 100Mbps unlimited plan, doesn't mean everyone can and will have it. I can't say I love AMP, but I definitely support it. Purely from the reach it can potentially have if everyone does start using is great. Everybody is already optimizing so that they get crawled by Google, better faster and more efficiently. This is the logical next step. From a ranking perspective, I think it's important that the HN community stops thinking just in terms of geographical metrics. Yes, in the US, UK etc where our offices are it gets blotched. But our next users are not going to be there from these countries. If at all, being a PM for a global product here, tomorrow's users, paying or free will be from probably from a country where AMP users would be the most impressionable today.

nailer 9y ago

Why can't a site appear on the search carousel if it uses amp.js but is delivered from a fast, non-Google CDN?

LoSboccacc 9y ago

> "we specifically requested Apple" "we fucked up again web to wap level and now everyone needs to jump along because sharing is royally screwed"

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

odammit 9y ago

Your product is at best a turd burger at worst, an undercooked turd burger. The easiest way to do the "more generic solution" is to remove that turd burger from search results. Interwebz fixed.

cramforce 9y ago

UPDATE: We confirmed that this actually implemented as a generic solution. (Sharing <link rel=canonical>), so there is nothing AMP specific here.

nofunsir 9y ago

> TL of AMP here I really wish some interdimensional telepathic Fart would Goodbye Moonmen this TL into abandoning AMP.